People in Illinois are looking at fifteen years if they audio-record police activity. Or should I say “still looking”? Because the Illinois Eavesdropping Act makes recording someone in public without their consent a felony. Last year the ACLU filed a lawsuit challenging the law, but a few weeks ago Federal Judge Suzanne Conlon dismissed it, saying there is no First Amendment protections there.

Although law-enforcement officials can legally record civilians in private or public, audio-recording a law-enforcement officer, state’s attorney, assistant state’s attorney, attorney general, assistant attorney general or judge in the performance of his or her duties is a Class 1 felony, punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

As Reason magazine’s Radley Balko writes, unfortunately, “the law is used almost exclusively against people who attempt to record on-duty police officers.”

While absurd, this makes some sort of sense because allowing citizens to record police activity would likely cause all kinds of grief for that very jackbooted state that is known to be very corrupt.

Protests and rallies can offer great opportunities for photojournalism, so for all you photographers in the Minneapolis area there will be a demonstration tomorrow to protest the FBI’s recent raids that targeted political activists in Illinois and Minnesota. And if you are unaware of these controversial raids (which included five homes and one office in Minneapolis), check out Answer Coalition’s coverage of the story.

From Answer Coalition:

FBI agents served search warrants and grand jury subpoenas on the activists on Sept. 24 and 27, allegedly relating to political speech in defense of the Palestinian and Colombian peoples. The activists have committed no crime; the real target of the raids are political dissent and free speech. These terror tactics are meant to have a chilling effect on progressive movements.